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John Armor, author & Republican activist, passed away this morning
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John Armor (aka: Congressman BillyBob) died this morning of colon cancer at St Joesph’s hospital in Asheville, NC. He was 67.
We disagreed on every possible political issue – but I liked him because he was a decent man, an attentive husband, and an excellent writer who loved his country.
John was a lawyer, a writer, and Republican activist. He wrote 8 books on a range of topics from fiction, to the Japanese American internment camp at Manzanar, to term limits, to his most recent work: These Are The Times That Try Men’s Souls – an annotated version of Tom Paine’s most famous writings. (He was particularly proud of this last book.)
I first met John Armor in 2006 during his run in the Republican primary against congressional incumbent Charles “Chainsaw” Taylor. For those of you who don’t know: Taylor was a corrupt local politician who wasn’t known for dealing kindly with opposition. It took a lot of guts for John to step up to the plate and challenge him.
At the time I was an active progressive blogger at Brainshrub.com. (Now defunct) John was the first Republican candidate in NC11 to agree to a sit-down interview with bloggers. You can read about the interview here. I was stuck my his sincerity, intelligence, and willingness to listen to viewpoints different from his own.
Armor ran for congress again in 2008, then settled into retirement. He remained active in the Republican party and occasionally played the character of Benjamin Franklin. You can enjoy one of his performances here. (Show starts at 3:33 seconds)
I visited John in the hospital less than 48 hours ago. He was in high-spirits after his latest surgery, and doctors had given him an optimistic prognosis. His wife Michelle by his bedside, he joked that regardless of the outcome the doctors work on his colon had made him “A Perfect Asshole.”
We talked about local politics, about the governments role in infrastructure, and about his life in general. John was a man who talked the talk and walked the walk. He cared deeply about his community, and left the world a better place than he left it.
RIP John. You were one of the few hard-core conservatives I could talk too without raising my blood-pressure.
- pvh
America The Lost
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(Crossposted from the Huffington Post)
After last year’s summer of discontent, I looked back on America’s response to September 11:
A flood of post-September 11 articles asked how the attacks happened, what we would do next, and why terrorists hate us. One savvy pundit asked, Would America keep its head?
We invaded Iraq on trumped-up intelligence. We conducted illegal surveillance on our own citizens. We imprisoned people without charge, here and abroad. We rendered prisoners for torture and tortured others ourselves in violation of international law. All the while, millions of staunch, law-and-order conservatives supported and defended it, and still do. Vigorously.
Did America keep its head? Uh, no.
After an earlier national tragedy, the 1986 Challenger disaster, the broadcast networks filled air time by bringing on psychologists. How absurd it seemed to have TV psychologists telling us how we should feel about it and explain it to the kids. Today, of course, absurd is the new normal. Today we have the conservative Mighty Wurlitzer going all E. Power Biggs on America, telling us 24/7 not how we should feel but whom we should fear. And week by week it is becoming increasingly hard to keep up with whom the home of the brave is supposed to fear.
It’s Called An L3C
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s a new company in town — an L3C. Okay, it’s not here yet, but as soon as Gov. Perdue signs SB 308, North Carolina will join Michigan, Vermont, Illinois, Wyoming, Utah, and (in 2011) Maine in allowing this hybrid business entity that appeared first in Vermont just two years ago. It is the kind of vehicle we could use to help put workers displaced by plant closings back to work in WNC. Wikipedia describes the L3C this way:
The L3C is a low-profit limited liability company (LLC), that functions via a business modality that is a hybrid legal structure combining the financial advantages of the limited liability company, an LLC, with the social advantages of a non-profit entity. An L3C runs like a regular business and is profitable. However, unlike a for-profit business, the primary focus of the L3C is not to make money, but to achieve socially beneficial aims, with profit making as a secondary goal. The L3C thus occupies a niche between the for-profit and charitable sectors.
Henredon Furniture, Morganton, NC (Burke County)
N.C. Senator Jim Jacumin, a Republican who represents Burke and Caldwell Counties, introduced the Senate bill which passed in the House on Thursday without a single No vote. The N.C. Center for Nonprofits described his intentions:
N.C. Senator Jacumin envisioned L3Cs as collaborations between local nonprofits and failing furniture or textile businesses. These L3Cs would use investments (direct investments, grants, or low-interest loans) from private foundations, businesses, and individuals to purchase and upgrade factories to make them more energy efficient and less expensive to operate. The L3Cs could then lease these factories to manufacturers at competitive rates that would help keep manufacturing jobs in local communities.
The purpose of the L3C is to assist small businesses that might not be able to get off the ground if they had to pay investors a commercial rate of return. Like MOOMilk, a local organic milk company in Maine. Like small-business start-ups in struggling towns with high unemployment. Or to renovate existing factory space. Or newspapers big and small, for example. For the socially responsible investor, this is a way to do good — including put people back to work — and make a few bucks along the way. The L3C’s creator, Robert Lang, CEO of The Mary Elizabeth and Gordon B. Mannweiler Foundation, Inc., calls it “the for profit with a non profit soul.”
Rush Limbaugh calls it an idea thought up by liberal “wackos.” Rush believes “this is social engineering … designed to pervert capitalism” and “propagandize the American people in the name of the Obama administration.”
Where do I send the check?
Then again, maybe Ashevillians should just invest in more high-priced condos?
Overlooked
Posted by: | CommentsThis past Sunday, June 6th marked Scrutiny Hooligans’ sixth anniversary/birthday.
About Time
Posted by: | CommentsIn case you hadn’t noticed this week, WNC is getting a little more attention from Raleigh lately. Retail jobs, mostly, but it’s a start:
The small businesses benefitted by the Main Street Solutions grants will create or retain a minimum of 233 permanent full-time and part-time jobs, in addition to 195 construction jobs, according to the grant applications.
RALEIGH — Gov. Bev Perdue recently announced that eight communities will receive a total of $1.95 million through the state’s Main Street Solutions Fund. Towns in Western North Carolina include Morganton and Waynesville.
Add to those two Kings Mountain. That’s three towns west of Statesville getting some economic development help. Somebody has noticed we’re out here.
California Could Ban Carryout Plastic Bags
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With Assembly Bill 1998 coming up for a vote by June 4th, California could be the first state in the U.S. to ban carryout plastic bags from large retail centers. It is difficult to find usage statistics on plastic carry out bags, but according to Envirosax, a reusable bag manufacturer, there are about 100 billion carryout bags used annually in the US. The California population is about 12% of the total US, so let’s assume California uses 12 billion of the 100. This is just less than one carryout bag per person per day. Recycle rates are appalling, only 2%. That means 98 billion bags go to the landfill every year. Or some don’t go to the landfill and end up as pollution in our trees, streams, and oceans. If just 1% of bags end up as litter, that’s an astonishing one billion bags ending up in our environment every year.
The impact of plastic bag litter is well known. Even a country with as dismal an environmental record as China has banned plastic carryout bags. The number one poster child for why plastic sucks is the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch. The garbage patch is 1 to 2 times the area of Texas and has large concentrations of floating plastic. One estimate has plastic concentrations at seven times that of plankton. Wildlife in the area confuse the plastic debris with food. Birds starve to death because they’re stomachs get filled with indigestible plastic. Since California has a large coastline to the Pacific Ocean, it is thought that the state is a large point source for the Garbage Patch pollution.
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And There Was Much Rejoicing
Posted by: | CommentsFrom a City of Asheville press release:
On April 13, the City of Asheville will premier two new high-tech enhancements for Asheville City Council formal meetings. Starting Tuesday, Council meetings will be streamed live via webcast, and meeting attendees will find more access to wireless internet while in Council chambers.On April 9th, the City of Asheville launched a live webcast of the city’s Asheville Channel programming, already available to Charter Cable subscribers on channel 11. The government access channel features live and replayed coverage of Asheville City Council formal meetings. Now, viewers may also watch the channel at www.AshevilleNC.gov/gtv. Tuesday’s meeting will mark the first live stream via webcast.
“In our world of changing technology in which not all have cable TV, we are glad to offer this alternative in partnership with the Community Relations Division,†said Information Technology Services Director Jonathan Feldman.
Formal City Council Meetings are telecast live the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 5pm, and are replayed Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 9am. Archived formal City Council sessions are also available for on demand viewing at the city’s website.
Starting Tuesday, the City of Asheville will also offer improved wireless internet access for guests in City Council chambers. The service features improved coverage as well as support for more devices.
I Must Licky You
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©2010 David Cohen • david@cohencidents.com
Grounded in reality
Posted by: | CommentsSandpoint (Idaho) Tea Party Patriots president Pam Stout’s appeared last week on Letterman to discuss her newfound interest in politics. Of the grandmotherly Stout’s politics, Digby writes:
Her politics aren’t grounded in real life but in abstract concepts.
Stout’s group, the New York Times wrote in February, “joined a coalition, Friends for Liberty, that includes representatives from Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, a new player in a resurgent militia movement.” With all the grounded-in-reality that that entails.
For instance, the Detroit Free Press reported last week that indicted Hutaree militia member, Tina Stone, complained on her Facebook page that H.R. 1388 (signed recently by President Obama) allocated “$20 billion to help the terrorist group Hamas settle in the U.S.” Apparently, Stone credulously accepted bogus facts she received in a chain email.
Uh, yeah … uh, um, possibly
Posted by: | CommentsGoldman’s rigging online polls, now?
From the Telegraph of London on Thursday:
Goldman Sachs is investigating claims that one of its computers was used to rig a public vote on the introduction of a so-called “Robin Hood tax†on bankers.
From Business Insider on Friday:
A few days ago robinhoodtax.com, asked the public to vote on a “tiny” tax on bankers that would donate no more than .05% of each banking transaction to the poor.
[...]
Robin Hood’s security team said that it traced the erroneous votes to two computers, one of which is allegedly registered to Goldman, according to The Telegraph.
From the Digby on Sunday:
Unbelievable. Why in the hell are people entrusting all this power to such a bunch of babies?
On the other hand, if they are forced to pay a .05% tax on transactions it goes without saying that they’ll all hold their breath until they turn blue because it just won’t be worth it to work anymore. And then where will we be?
It seems that somebody at the great vampire squid isn’t too keen on the idea of the banks that brought the world economy to its knees owing anything to the commoners who bailed them out. It’s not a European notion they’d like to see spread to the U.S.
Tell us again how that personal responsibility stuff is supposed to work, how about it?
[h/t Crooks and Liars]
